The 6-3 ruling held that because the British company J. McIntyre
Machinery had not engaged in activities in New Jersey that reflected an
intent to benefit from protection of state laws there, the state did not
have the power to adjudicate the company’s rights and liabilities.
Justice Kennedy wrote a plurality opinion, joined by Chief Justice
Roberts and Justices Thomas and Scalia. Justices Breyer and Alito
concurred in a separate opinion. Justice Ginsburg wrote the dissenting
opinion, joined by Justices Kagan and Sotomayor.

In her dissenting opinion, Ginsburg writes that New Jersey does have
jurisdiction over the British company, which sold a metal-shearing
machine that injured plaintiff Nicastro's hand. Citing Whytock’s
article, Ginsburg argues that choice-of-law considerations are among the
factors indicating that it would be fair and reasonable to require the
company to defend in New Jersey.

In his article, Whytock presents empirical evidence challenging the
conventional wisdom that judges' choice-of-law decisions are motivated
by biases in favor of domestic over foreign law, domestic over foreign
litigants, and plaintiffs over defendants. He concludes that
choice-of-law doctrine has a stronger influence than is generally
believed, and that in spite of judges' increasingly widespread use of
flexible choice-of-law methods, territorial factors including the place
of a plaintiff's injury continue to strongly influence choice-of-law
decisions.

A related article by Whytock in the Cornell Law Review article, "The Evolving Forum Shopping System" (2011),
suggests that the Nicastro decision may be part of a broader trend. In
it, Whytock argues that civil procedure has been evolving in a direction
that may increasingly limit U.S. court access for both American and
foreign citizens who, in our era of globalization, are increasingly
affected by transnational activity.